Tag: Lessons Learned

What do you do when the project is finished? I mean, apart from the party and the sigh of relief? You’ve delivered your project. Maybe you consider it a success, maybe you’re not sure. It doesn’t matter, it’s over now. Celebrate your success!

Part of good project management is learning from your experiences. Now is the perfect time to do lots of little things. Most of them do not take a great deal of effort, but some of them can do you a great deal of good in the future.

Who are we doing this for? Who do we tell that this has been a success?

(If ever you do anything for nothing, make sure you do it for yourself!)

What should you do we do? (to get the most from our success)

We want to get as much benefit as we can out of the experience we have gained.

Ensure that you respect the “intellectual property rights” and confidentiality of others, but make sure you get something out of the experience.

Here are my suggestions for things to do in the wind-down period of the project or immediately after it finishes. Make sure you have something tangible to take away.

Update your CV to include the project you have just completed.

If you keep a notebook (you should), then review the sections relating to the project.

Update your contacts book. Make sure you connect on LinkedIn or similar with the people you want to remain in contact with.

Write a short report (maybe just 1 or 2 pages) to yourself, describing what happened – the good, the bad and the ugly!

Create a short presentation describing the project and the key learning points. Maybe produce two versions: the “selling version” and the “warts and all” version. Don’t mix them up!

How do you get started?

This is a surprisingly easy thing to do. All you need is the motivation.

There is often a period at the (or shortly after) the end of a project when you will have spare time and may not be sure what to do. I have given you a short list of small activities, all of which will be beneficial.